Prior art patent application Ser. No. 06/105,711, filed Dec. 20, 1979 by W. R. Kraft, et al, for "A Flexible Processor On A Single Semiconductor Substrate" of common assignee, provides for the decoding of computer operation codes (OP codes), or computer instructions, using a programmable logic array (PLA). A PLA typically includes an AND array and an OR array. Decoding of an OP code is done by applying the OP code to the AND array of the PLA, and extracting the proper control information from the OR array of the PLA. For all but the simplest computing machines, the PLA becomes physically large. This results in a performance degradation manifest in slower machine speeds. For example, jump instructions execute slowly when the jump OP code is decoded using such prior art PLA's because if the jump is made, processing must wait for another OP code to propagate through the PLA.